Butterflies at Kew

One of our favourite places to visit is Kew Gardens, and its just a short bus trip away. We got lucky today, Kew has got a fantastic display in its Princess of Wales glasshouse. Butterflies and moths flying free amongst tropical plants. Some of them are as big as birds, absolutely spectacular!

Penguins, wip day 1

The experiment continues! The pastel is going on well. My interest is in the movements of the birds, and to capture the animation of the sea. Its a sweet scene the penguin on the far left looks like he's sticking in a toe to test the water! I'm determined not to over work the details on this, I have been advised by a parrot not too, yes I did say parrot, but I trust his judgement ( long story).

Getting experimental

Its been a week since I've posted, the Summer hols have started so I've been busy with the boys. I have however had a project in the back of my mind. Again its from the photos my parents took in the Antarctica. This time its penguins. I am going to make it mainly a study of greys, and the textures and reflections. Today I just taped a piece of A3 pastelmat to a board, and applied a wash of gouache paint. Im crossing my fingers that it stays flat as it dries, pastelmat is almost like card. I've had a play on a swatch so am hopeful the texture or tooth of the paper can take the water from the wash. The test piece I used kept a good tooth, and still took multiple layers of pastel. Anyway let it dry and see what happens!

A gaggle of goslings

Well I think I'm done for now. I've only just finished this today so will put it on my shelf to ponder! Its still attached to the board you can see the tape on the top left corner. I know if I cut it off the board I'll see something to change! I'll also post it in my art forum for a C&C, but I'm pleased on the whole.

Goslings day 3

I had a rare day today where I had a fairly free day. Lots of fluff later...I'm fairly happy with progress, I need to look a bit closer at the two goslings with their head together, they are kind of sqwished together making it hard to decide where it starts and ends.

Gosling wip day2

Just had an hour to make a start on some detail. I've decided to keep to a limited palette. Its not long now until the schools finish for the Summer, so I must try to get on with this before then. Once the boys are off I don't tend to get too much time.

Is it a gaggle of goslings?

Goslings wip,
I really enjoyed getting back to the extra soft pastels, so have decided to stick with them at present. This is a soft pastel painting on A3 pastelmat paper.
I stumbled across these cute goslings back in the Spring up at Richmond park. It was getting late in the day, and they were settling down for the night, snuggling up to their Mum under a tree. The soft pastels I hope will be perfect to create the soft downy feathers of the goslings. I've used a couple of photos to get this composition together, and have spent an hour today roughly blocking in some colour.